Regional News

Don't miss our other news sources!

Sicel Technologies Closes “Up-Round” of Funding
Morrisville-based Sicel Technologies, Inc. (www.siceltech.com), a medical device company making monitoring devices to aid oncologists, has completed a funding round that was three times the company's initial target. Burton Advisers of London led Sicel's “up-round” of funding, which also included other institutional investors, healthcare funds and private investors. Company officials said the funding would be used in the commercial launch of Sicel's first two products, both of which address the radiation oncology market.

Sicel's “flagship” product is an in vivo radiation sensor, designed to be implanted into a tumor in a patient to monitor radiation therapy. The device communicates radiation dose readings from the body to an external monitor via radio frequency coupling. Sicel's second product is a radiation dosimeter designed to stick on the skin of the patient like a “Band-Aid.”

Sicel Technologies is a CED member.

[Top of page]

Opsware to Acquire Cary's Tangram Enterprise Solutions
Cary-based Tangram Enterprise Solutions, Inc. (www.tangram.com), a provider of IT asset management software, has signed a definitive agreement to be acquired by Opsware Inc. (NASDAQ: OPSW). Opsware, based in Santa Clara, California, provides data center automation software. The transaction will be an all-stock transaction valued at $10 million (subject to certain adjustments), according to company reports. Under the terms of the agreement, Opsware will acquire all of Tangram's outstanding debt and shares of convertible preferred stock and common stock.

Officials said they expected the acquisition to close in the first quarter of 2004. The deal is subject to customary closing conditions and regulatory review. Tangram provides IT asset management software to a number of the Fortune 100 companies in the U.S., as well as several major international customers.

[Top of page]

FormRouter Raises $1 Million Private Round
Cary-based FormRouter (www.formrouter.com) has raised $1 million of private funding from undisclosed friends and family. This round of funding will be used to promote FormRouter's new release, FormRouter.NET, which helps organizations create and host forms online and retrieve responses directly to their desktop databases without any programming.

In addition, the company will utilize these funds to boost its work force, which currently consists of eight employees. FormRouter officials said the money should make the company profitable without seeking additional fund raising.

[Top of page]

Qualyst Receives $160,000 Grant from N.C. Biotech Center, Kenan Institute
RTP-based Qualyst, Inc. (www.qualyst.com), has received a two-year, $160,000 grant from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center and The Kenan Institute to conduct collaborative research in partnership with UNC-Chapel Hill. Officials said the grant will fund research in the laboratories of Dr. Dhiren R. Thakker, School of Pharmacy, UNC-Chapel Hill, toward continued development and refinement of technologies for high throughput screening of drug candidates to assess metabolic stability.

In addition to the grant announcement, Qualyst has also appointed Dr. Ian Mehr as its Senior Director of Business Development. Dr. Mehr has more than 10 years of experience in the life sciences industry, spanning both research and business development. Qualyst is developing technologies for the drug discovery and development marketplace. The company's products allow researchers to predict with greater accuracy the disposition of a particular drug within the human body.

[Top of page]

Raindrop Geomagic Awarded $100,000 Grant from National Science Foundation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded RTP-based Raindrop Geomagic (www.geomagic.com) a $100,000 SBIR Phase I grant to research the use of Morse Theory in reverse engineering. Morse Theory, which has been around for nearly 100 years, has been used to gain insight into difficult mathematical questions. In the computing world, this theory has helped researchers find discrete structure in continuous, smooth data.

Raindrop Geomagic officials said that Morse Theory can be applied to further automate reverse engineering, the process of capturing a physical object and transforming it into a surface model ready for manufacturing. The research could help deliver a sought-after advance in reverse engineering: the ability to automatically create surface patches that follow the direction and features of a triangulated model.

Raindrop Geomagic is a CED member.

[Top of page]

Tranzyme Expands Agreement with NeoGenesis Pharmaceuticals
RTP-based Tranzyme, Inc. (www.tranzyme.com) has extended its collaborative agreement with Massachusetts-based NeoGenesis Pharmaceuticals to include additional genes of therapeutic interest. The collaboration will continue in the areas of gene expression and drug discovery and will utilize Tranzyme's “TexT” (Tranz Expression Technology) in support of the chemical genomics program at NeoGenesis. The two companies entered into their original collaboration in August 2001.

To date, Tranzyme has engineered over 50 mammalian cell lines expressing important therapeutic targets for drug discovery applications including cancer, viral diseases, CNS disorders, and metabolic diseases. Under the expanded collaboration, NeoGenesis will provide additional sets of disease-associated gene sequences of therapeutic interest. Tranzyme will deliver these genes into different mammalian cell lines and express the proteins using its protein expression technology, according to company reports.

Tranzyme is a CED member.

[Top of page]

Strategic Technologies Partners with Maryland's Metastorm
Cary-based Strategic Technologies (www.stratech.com) has partnered with Maryland-based Metastorm, a provider of Business Process Management (BPM) software for automating, managing, and controlling processes. Strategic Technologies joins Metastorm's Alliance Program as a Solutions Provider partner and will resell and recommend Metastorm in conjunction with its product and consulting services offerings.

Strategic Technologies creates competitive advantage for its customers by combining industry knowledge and a focus on specific markets including manufacturing and distribution, financial services, healthcare, telecommunications, biotechnology, and a broad expertise in e-business technologies. Under the partnership agreement, Strategic Technologies will provide its expertise to create scalable solutions for clients using Metastorm's “e-Work” technology. To deliver these services, Strategic Technologies has invested to maintain a team of trained consultants empowered to resell and implement Metastorm's BPM technology. The company will also provide implementation support to Metastorm's customers, officials said.

Strategic Technologies is a CED member.

[Top of page]

Mi-Co Inks Deal with European Firm eMiddleware
RTP-based Mi-Co (www.mi-corporation.com) has formed a strategic partnership with European firm eMiddleware to bring digital writing solutions to the global market. The collaboration combines the data capture and digital writing technology of the Mi-Forms Software System from Mi-Co with the technical services and software solutions of eMiddleware. Officials said the alliance will bring data capture and digital writing applications and solutions to such areas as banking and finance, healthcare and municipal services. The agreement will also allow the RTP-based company to extend its support and service to the UK and continental Europe.

London-based eMiddleware evaluated many options for digital forms and chose Mi-Co because of the RTP-based company's enterprise solution for capturing mobile data. Officials said Mi-Co's application can save an organization time and money in capturing and using information.

Mi-Co is a CED member.

[Top of page]

Events Update

December 8th — Biotech Forum - Breakthrough to Commercialization: From NDA to Product Launch
December 11th — CED Information Session for Prospective Members
December 12th — CFO Roundtable: Benchmarking Benefits - An Interactive CFO Roundtable
December 16th — Capital Connection Luncheon
December 17th — CED Capital Connection Information Session